Chapter 19
They moved around each other, getting ready for bed, with an ease that had been missing in the last few days.
In the last few weeks, if Jem was being honest. Tean brushed his teeth at the sink while Jem took off his clothes.
Then Jem had enough time to stick a toothbrush under the water before Tean started washing his face.
When Tean was done, Jem rinsed out his mouth and took his turn with the face wash.
Scipio, flopped onto his bed, watched everything with casual uninterest, tail occasionally flopping when either Jem or Tean looked at him.
In bed, with the lights off, Jem closed his eyes.
He could smell the faint astringency of the face wash, the hint of mint from the toothpaste, and a subtler note—the familiar smell of Tean’s hair and skin.
The tension from the day seemed to lock his body, his muscles stiff, his back aching from overlapping bruises.
He tried his side. He tried adjusting the pillow. He tried scrunching down.
“Roll over,” Tean said, and then warm hands were on him, guiding him onto his stomach.
Tean’s hands traced some invisible map on Jem’s back, barely brushing the skin.
When he grazed the bruises, Jem tried not to wince.
He must have failed because Tean let out a soft, knowing sound.
Then the hands were gone. The click came of a cap opening, and when Tean touched Jem again, his hands were coated with something cool and slick.
Tean worked the oil into the bruised flesh—not with his usual, sometimes overenthusiastic kneading and pressing, the way he did when he was giving Jem a massage, but lightly, in smooth, glazing touches.
That sensation of cool quickly transformed into warmth, the heat approaching but not quite reaching discomfort.
The effect was a simple one: Jem melted.
“Oh my fucking God,” he mumbled into the pillow. He was drooling a little. “That’s fucking amazing.”
Tean laughed quietly.
“Right there,” Jem said.
Obediently, Tean slowed the movement of his hands and paid more attention to that spot.
Jem groaned. The drooling thing was embarrassing, but the groan took it to a whole other level.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” Tean said after a while.
He was straddling one of Jem’s legs, bare skin against bare skin. Jem started to get hard.
“You were so good with Daniel.”
“At least I’m good at something,” Jem murmured.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Can you try a little lower?”
Tean brought his touch down. Discomfort and release. Discomfort and release.
“I miss this,” Jem said. He probably shouldn’t have, but he was definitely hard by that point, and he was tired. “Miss you touching me.”
Tean’s hands kept moving, but the silence between them began to tense. It felt like glass shattering when Tean finally said, “I know we haven’t been…romantic in a while.”
“It’s okay,” Jem said.
Tean let out a funny laugh. “Is it?”
“Yeah, of course. Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Jem tried propping himself up to look back over his shoulder, but Tean made an annoyed sound and pressed him back onto the mattress. “I just said it because—because I like you touching me.”
“I know, Jem.”
“It wasn’t, like, a dig.”
The faint hint of menthol and something else, some sort of fragrance, wafted up to Jem.
“I know.” Tean’s breathing sounded funny, though.
Jem was still trying to think of a way to apologize—which was harder than he expected because the massage felt so fucking good, and his brain was melting out of his ears—when Tean leaned down and kissed his shoulder.
It took a second for Jem’s brain to catch up, and then he let out a soft, pleased breath.
The next kiss moved higher. Tean’s hands stilled, fingers spread wide on Jem’s back now for balance. And the next kiss found the spot where Jem’s neck joined his shoulder. Jem whispered, “Fuck,” and he tilted his head, baring more of the sensitive skin.
Tean kissed his way up the side of Jem’s neck. Jem shivered, and the shiver turned into a full-blown tremor when Tean bit Jem’s earlobe and, a moment later, ran his tongue around the shell of Jem’s ear.
“Shit, babe,” Jem said, voice husky.
Tean gave him a pat on the back. “Roll over.”
The combination of the balm and Tean’s sure, steady touches had relaxed the tender muscles in Jem’s back, and he flopped over with barely a twinge.
Tean was still kneeling there, and Jem gathered him in his arms, so that Tean shuffled forward to sit on his lap.
Jem eased his glasses off and kissed him, and one of his hands found Tean’s thin chest and ran down it: following the stripe of hair down the center, tweaking one nipple, stroking his flat stomach.
Tean was strong; Jem knew that better than anyone.
But sometimes, when they were together like this, he had the sense that if he moved too fast, if he wasn’t careful, he might break him.
When Tean pulled back, his dark eyes studied Jem, as though searching for something.
“I miss you,” Jem said.
It sounded childish as soon as it left his mouth. He wanted to pretend he hadn’t said it. But something softened in Tean’s face, and he cupped Jem’s cheek. The touch raised the soft sound of Jem’s beard scraping his palm.
“Lie back,” Tean said. “Relax.”
With a grin, Jem propped himself against a pillow, arms behind his head.
Tean scooted down the length of his body.
His fine-boned fingers found the elastic of Jem’s trunks and eased them down his thighs; Jem’s dick straightened, and the faint spice of his body was unmistakable. Tean bent and began to lick the head.
When Jem and Tean had met, Tean’s experience with sex had been limited to Ammon—and what they’d done together had been, in its own way, as fucked up as everything else between the two of them.
Jem had been with other men, but for the most part, as hook-ups, or friends with benefits.
He was fine with the mechanics of it—he knew where everything was under the hood, so to speak—but, as he’d figured out with Tean, that was just the beginning.
As they’d figured out together was, maybe, a better way of saying it. As they were still figuring out.
Tean, at least, had certainly figured out more than his fair share. Not that he’d surprised Jem; Tean was smart, he paid attention, and he was considerate. Three factors that went a long way with whoever was sharing your bed. He certainly knew what Jem liked.
He started slowly, his lips and faint touches from his tongue, sliding back and forth along Jem’s dick.
Everything was so soft and slick. It had been a long time, and Jem got even harder.
Tean paused, adjusted his fingers around the root of Jem’s cock, and looked up from under wild hair and dark eyelashes. One thumb traced a vein.
“A little, uh, excited,” Jem said. A grin slid out. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Tean said.
He ran Jem’s dick across his lips again, and this time, he kept moving, sliding the head and then the shaft along his cheek.
Tean didn’t have much of a beard, but the day’s faint stubble rasped against sensitive skin, and Jem let out a little sound.
When Tean raised his head, a streak of saliva and pre glistened on his cheek.
He repeated the process on the other side, and Jem hissed a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and said, “Babe, I’m close. ”
“You are?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
Tean murmured a noise of acknowledgment and took Jem’s cock into his mouth.
He moved slowly, swallowing Jem in fractions of inches, his tongue pressed against Jem’s shaft to create the barest hint of friction in that warm, wet hold.
He did two shallow bobs, readying himself, and then his hands spread Jem’s thighs.
Whatever was left of the balm made hot spots on his skin, but Jem barely felt them, because then Tean took him deeper.
The sudden tightness made Jem move his hips involuntarily. He thrust once, twice, sliding into Tean’s throat. “Oh shit, shit, shit!”
His body tightened. He grabbed Tean’s hair. He jerked his way through a few more sloppy thrusts. And then it was over, and he slumped back, body loose enough to come apart now.
When he opened his eyes, Tean was brushing his hair into place—whatever that looked like on the doc.
“Oh shit,” mumbled Jem.
“It’s fine,” Tean said. “I’m fine.”
But Jem dropped an arm over his eyes. “Oh my God.”
Tean rubbed his leg.
“What happened? You killed me. You sucked my soul out of my dick.”
“I know that’s supposed to be a compliment, but it’s not as flattering as you think.”
“What the actual fuck, Tean?” And since Jem couldn’t think of anything else to say, he said again, “Oh my God.”
“How’s your back?”
“How’s my back?” Jem moved his arm and squinted up at the doc. Their room was still dark, and Tean was a shadow. “Get up here. I want to do terrible things to you.”
Tean let Jem pull him in for a kiss. Tean tasted like come, and he smelled like menthol and whatever else was in that balm. But when they separated, he said, “I’m good.”
“What do you mean, you’re good?”
“I’m okay. I don’t think I’m going to get off tonight.”
“Why not? What’s wrong—” Nutting always made him stupid, which was why Jem was most of the way through the question before he could stop himself.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Okay. Right. Yeah, that’s not what I meant. I just meant—is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you not like doing that?”
“Of course I liked doing it. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to do it.”
Really, that stupid part of Jem almost said. Even if you had to drink Everclear first?
Aloud, he managed to say, “I know.”
“I wanted to do that for you.”
“Okay. I mean, thank you.” But it came out more like a question because Jem had never actually thanked anyone for a BJ before.
“I’m just not—I just don’t feel like it tonight,” Tean said.
“Okay.” And this voice in Jem’s head said, Okay, okay, okay, is that all you can fucking say? “If you ever don’t want to, you know, fool around, though—”
“I said I wanted to.”
Finally, Jem nodded.
“I don’t know why this is such a big deal,” Tean said.
“It’s not.”
Tean put a hand on Jem’s chest. The smell of menthol drifted up to him again. “I just wanted to do something nice for you because I love you.”
“I love you too.”
For a few fraught seconds, Tean perched there, staring down at him. Then he said, “I need to wash my hands.”
A slash of light. Running water. And then the dark again, and the sound of Tean padding toward the bed.
Jem lay there, staring up at the ghost of the ceiling, wide awake. Until he slept.
He wasn’t sure what woke him. The thin light through the blinds was unchanged, the room still swallowed by darkness. He tapped his phone, and the screen said 3:07. He reached across the mattress and found cool sheets. No trace of Scipio’s soft snores.
The door. That was what had woken him: the front door closing.
He’ll come back. He always comes back. He can’t sleep, and he’s trying not to bother you, and it helps him, going on these walks, by himself in the dark. So, just wait for him to come back. And eventually, it won’t be like this anymore.
But it would be another night of pretending to sleep and lying awake.
Another night of minutes crawling by until they slowly built into hours.
Another night of not knowing if Tean had fallen and gotten hurt, if he’d gotten mugged, knifed, shot, hit in the head, run over by a car.
Another night of worry getting bigger and bigger until it sat on his chest like panic.
Jem threw back the covers. He banged around in the dark, jammed a toe against the dresser, and swore. He hopped over to the lamp and turned it on. By that time, Scipio stood in the doorway, one ear flipped up like he’d stumbled out of bed just as bedraggled as Jem.
“You look like a mess,” Jem told him.
Scipio lay in the hall, head on his paws, and watched as Jem found jeans, a sweatshirt, and socks. The socks made Scipio perk up.
“Come on,” Jem said.
He stepped into his ROOS, didn’t bother with lacing them up, and helped Scipio into his harness. When they went outside, the cold met them like a hand, trying to push them back into the house. Jem doubled the leash around his fist and started down the block.
Their street was quiet except for the buzz of the streetlights.
Farther off, sirens whined somewhere in the valley.
It could be anything. Anywhere. It didn’t have to be Tean.
They lived near the University of Utah Hospital.
Ambulances came and went at all hours of the night.
It was a level-one trauma center, which meant all the worst cases had to come here.
If you’d been stabbed. If you’d been shot.
If some gang-banger hadn’t liked the look of you and tried to kick you to death.
Jem had no idea which way Tean went on these walks, so he flipped a mental coin and started down.
He passed home after home. Darkened windows looked out at him.
The street stayed empty. He waited for something—an Uber bringing someone home, or a night owl puttering about in the living room, even an animal digging around in a garbage can.
A possum. A raccoon. They had a retired English professor as a neighbor, a few doors up, and he’d said the best way to get rid of the possums was to bring back wolves.
After a few blocks, none of it felt real anymore.
The cold made Jem feel awake, alert, although a part of him knew that his brain was still shaking off sleep.
But contrasted with that sense of alertness were the blacked-out houses, the flood of amber light, the fucking aloneness of it all.
It was like being on the moon. It was like being in a dream.
Or a nightmare. You have this life, and you have a family, and then, all of a sudden, it’s just you, and everyone’s gone.
He’d gone looking for her on a night just like this.
Gotten the bedroom window open, climbed out, and started walking.
He’d been too little to understand what was going on.
Why she wasn’t there anymore. Why he was in a different house.
Why the man shouted at him when he wanted to watch cartoons.
And so he’d gone looking for her. He didn’t remember their names, or where the house was—just somewhere in the valley.
But he remembered stopping at street corners.
Checking both ways. Looking for her. Like she was a place he could go back to.
But you can’t go back, he thought, blinking against the fresh edge of wind, leaning into it, checking both ways. And sometimes people leave, and you can never find them again.